Overview

The participants of the IABP work together to maintain a network of drifting buoys in the Arctic Ocean to provide meteorological and oceanographic data for real-time operational requirements and research purposes including support to the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the World Weather Watch (WWW) Programme.

Data from the IABP have many uses. For example:
1. Research in Arctic climate and climate change,
2. Forecasting weather and ice conditions,
3. Validation of satellites,
4. Forcing, validation and assimilation into numerical climate models, and
5. Tracking the source and fate of samples taken from the ice.
Over 600 publications have benefited from observations from the IABP!